Friday, 22 May 2009

...for some piss poor cash in black metal that will make Thee Claw very, very upset*

Varg Vikernes (a.k.a. Count Grishnackh), the former BURZUM mastermind who was convicted of murdering MAYHEM guitarist Oystein Aarseth (a.k.a. Euronymous) in August 1993 and setting fire to three churches, is a free man.

"I can confirm that I have been released from prison," Vikernes told Norway's Dagbladet.

Although his parole application was denied four times — most recently in September 2008 — Vikernes received word in February that he would be released after serving almost 16 years in prison. He was finally allowed to leave a couple of weeks ago, according to Dagbladet.

"I will have to report [to the parole officer] for one year — initially every two weeks, and then once a month," Vikernes said.

For the past couple of years, Varg had been allowed to leave the prison regularly to walk around Tromsø, Norway (where the prison is located) and visit his family.

Last year it was reported that case workers at the Justice Ministry feared that Vikernes would be unable to adjust to life on the outside after his years in jail.

"I'm ready for society — and I have been for many years," Vikernes told Dagbladet last July. "I have learned from my mistakes and become older. Now I just want to be together with my family."

He added, "My mind has never been in prison; I think all the time about what I should do on the day that I am released.

"I have barely seen my son since he came into the world. Even though I hear his voice on the phone almost every day, it is very tough to not be present while he is growing up.

"I miss my family. And I look forward the day that I could work on my farm, create music, write books and be with the wife and kids around the clock — and live a normal life.

A photo of Varg Vikernes's new home in Bø, a municipality in the county of Telemark, Norway, can be viewed below (picture courtesy of Varden.no). Vikernes purchased the farm sometime last year and is planning to spend most of his time on the property with his French wife and son, both of whom had already been living at the home for quite some time.

"As I respect others, I want others to respect me," Varg told Varden.no last summer. "We are really quite ordinary people, and we do not want any more attention than anyone else."

We went along to the Star & Garter (a wonderous place, set deep in Manchester's red light district) to witness a really great gig this evening... Charger, Firebird & Church Of Misery.

It's late in the night now (early in the morning really) and I have work still to do, so I won't have time to give you a blow-by-blow about the show and the sets played by each band. But already this is a sure-fire contender for our gig of thee year.

But one thing is for sure: We certainly don't like how many Down hoodies we are seeing in our path lately! THEE CLAW says: Down with Gegcore.

The amount of Saint Vitus tattoos that I saw at Roadburn this year was just stupifying. Every other person at that event had ink on display and every other one of those had a Vitus tatt. And the ones who did have a physical scarring proving their loyalty to The Brotherhood made sure that they had photos taken *with* the Vitus guys, proudly displaying their ink. Wino must get it all the damn time. "Hey dude, can I get my photo with you? Check this out, I've got a big V on my arm! V for Vitus!" Wino: "Man if I had a nickle for every damn Vitus tattoo I've seen, I'd be a fucking Rockerfeller." Don't get me wrong here, I dig the commitment it takes to get this kinda shit etched into your body for the rest of your life. But seriously... every other tattoo was Vitus related. Serious Vitus geeks in 20 different languages must have been creaming in their grubby ripped jeans thanks to their 2009 European tour. Hey look, there's Armando! Hey Armando dude, come here and check out my fuckin' arm.....

"British gothic metal pioneers PARADISE LOST will releasing their demos, "Paradise Lost" (1988) and "Frozen Illusion" (1989), on CD. These raw recordings, which saw the band still firmly rooted in the field of doomy death metal, are being accompanied by six live tracks from the "Plains Of Desolation" bootleg, which has never been officially released as well. All songs have been digitally remastered and the release is strictly limited!

Guitarist Greg Mackintosh states: "Well what can I say about the re-release of our demos? This delves right down into our murky, sludgy beginnings. They may not be the best-produced demos ever, but they really sum up the raw honesty of a very exciting time in the U.K. and European underground heavy music scene. We always preferred our demos to our first album as we felt that the demos more succinctly captured the 'wallowing in a quagmire' sound. Hopefully these recordings will be taken for what they are ...the prime evil foundations of what was later to become gothic metal!"

Featuring extensive liner notes by vocalist Nick Holmes and a stunning vinyl replica packaging, "Drown In Darkness - The Early Demos" is a must-have for every PARADISE LOST fan and despite all its roughness, a sonic manifest of the early days of one of the most influential metal bands ever!

Tuesday, 5 May 2009

THEE CLAW PLOD SAYS FUCKING BUY THIS ALBUM YOU 'ORRIBLE BASTARDS!!!!This is the best metal album I've heard in years. This is Black Sabbath at it's best, if you liked 1992's excellent Dehumanizer album then you'll love The Devil You Know.Nice production, big sound, Vinny Appice's heavy drums nice and loud, Geezer Butler's bass right up in the mix, Tony Ioomi riffing better than ever and Ronnie James Dio's best recorded vocals in 17 years.Nuff said, just buy it!

A big sign on the door greets the punters through the door as soon as they walk in, "SAXON SOLD OUT", thank fuck I bought my ticket about 9 months ago, the only problem is that I'm on my own again.For the third Saxon UK tour in a row I attended the manchester date on my own, not necessarily a bad thing cos Saxon gigs, in my honest opinion, get better as I attend them.A surprise for me was the addition of another support band that I hadn't heard about and on the timetables printed out about the place it said SWEET SAVAGE, now there were 2 Sweet Savages, one was a gay glam metal band from america and the other was a new wave metal band from ireland which featured guitarist Vivian Campbell (a future member of Dio and Def Leppard), I prayed it would be the Irish band, then soon after at the bar I saw people getting their photos taken with guitarist Ian Speedo Wilson!!! I was chuffed to fuck!!!

I was quite disappointed with the set though, they only had time to do 4 songs but the new stuff sounds great and they finished with a good heavy cover of Whiskey In The Jar. They didn't even play Killing Time, short but sweet!!!

Took a quick trip to the merch table via the bar while the crew set up for DORO and returned to the same speck near the front where I stood before and there was excitement building, Doro's fans were out in force and she didn't disappoint. Opening up with the Warlock classic Earthshaker Rock, Doro taught us all a lesson in putting on a proper metal show, Doro Pesch is gorgeous in the flesh and her live vocals are brilliant, her backing band were spot on, the crowd in attendance were not let down, I hope she gets a proper headlining UK tour sorted soon cos I'd love to watch that band again!!! It was great to hear some old Warlock stuff like Burning The Witches and All We Are so I could have a singalong, top notch!!!

After about 30 minutes of waiting, the venue went pitch black and the intro from SAXON's new album started up with some moody lighting, blasting into new song Batallions Of Steel it was awesome to see most of the crowd knew this new masterpiece. This crowd were excited and on form! The band were gobsmacked by the crowd reaction to every single song, obviously all the classics got amazing receptions from the crowd but even new tunes like Demon Sweeny Todd got treated as a classic!!!

I find it fucking brilliant that they took a song (Ride Like The Wind) off their worst album (Destiny) and made it fucking rock to the point where it was best song of the night and got the loudest singalong off the audience. They mentioned that song has probably never been played in england before but it was pure gold!!!

Saxon are well known for not sticking to their setlists, we got a choice, Biff said "You can either have Dallas 1pm (which got a very loud cheer) or you can have The Power And The Glory" (even louder cheer) we got both tunes played and even more choices later on, Biff gave us the choice of Backs To The Wall or Machine Gun but the crowd were screaming for Crusader, so Paul Quinn started doing the crusader intro and the crowd went nuts. We also got the obvious songs like Denim and leather, 747, Wheels Of Steel and Princess Of, The Night but my favourites Strong Arm Of The Law and Never Surrender were played too, a fucking perfect gig.Keep them tours coming Biff lad!!!

Thee Boys:

THEE CLAW: SJW, Skum & Thee Patchie

Thee What?

Thee Claw started in 2006, and began as our excuse to listen to as much music as possible, see as many bands as possible, and travel as much as possible.

So what we plan to give you here is lists of upcoming gigs, reviews, photos and videos from gigs we've been to, and mentions of whatever musical releases are floating our boats at any given time. An all-purpose metal zine for the discerning music fan!

We used to post claw-based posts sporadically on our own seperate blogs, but after the awesome tour of 2007 decided to bring it all together in one place, and we hope you enjoy it.

Want a review? Get in touch with us here, and we'll get along or give your demo a spin.

Thee Fucking Claw is a philosophical movement created to make things 1000% cooler. It demands a constant stream of goals such as high-rate gig attendance, plenty of new music to listen to & lots of traveling.

Everyone has their own Claw, you just have to know how to tune into it.